Only millionaires need apply when paying a high price for penthouse living at Bondi Beach

Stephen Nicholls, Susan Wellings
March 10, 2012

Lofty price tag ... the Old Swiss Grand Hotel is now Pacific Bondi Beach, on the market for a suggested $15 million.

THE buyer of the very best penthouse at an upcoming development at Bondi is in for a treat.

The 300-square-metre three-bedroom apartment at Pacific Bondi Beach - the $440 million-plus conversion of the old Swiss Grand Hotel - will boast panoramic views of Australia's most famous beach.

Promotional material says it will have ''lofty domed ceilings'', but it has a lofty price tag as well. The suggested price of $15 million equates to $50,000 a square metre.

Yet fortunately there's hope for mere mortals, with 45-square-metre studios also available - from about $500,000.

The developer is Allen Linz and Eduard Litver's Rebel Property Group, which was also responsible for another upmarket block, The Bondi, over nine levels.

A 414-square-metre penthouse there sold for $9 million in 2010, which equates to $21,739 a square metre. Yet prices have been on the up in that building, with a third-floor apartment owned by the entrepreneur Joe Coffey and fashion designer Gail Elliott selling for $7.25 million two days before Christmas. The couple bought the apartment off the plan for $6.75 million in 2006.

Interestingly, the highest apartment price in Bondi - $11 million - was paid by Allen Linz's father, Sam Linz, for the penthouse at the recently completed 40-apartment block, The Beach House, next to The Bondi Hotel.

Pacific Bondi Beach will comprise 95 apartments, a hotel of 69 apartments and a two-level retail and restaurant complex. Allen Linz said there has already been plenty of interest, particularly from expatriates looking to spend three or four months of the year in Sydney.

''We realise we're not in the kind of perfect market conditions as we were when we sold The Bondi in 2006, when we sold 60-70 per cent of our product [off the plan] in one weekend,'' he said. ''But we're confident because we have great confidence in this product.''

Mr Linz said there would be a broad range of apartments from studios, one-bedders and two-bedders to penthouses.

''There are parts of that market that are doing very well, and other parts that are challenging,'' he said.

Mr Linz said the top penthouse price was still being finalised, but marketers had suggested the $15 million price tag. At that rate, they look a tad expensive when compared with some overseas on square-metre comparisons.

A six-bedroom, three-level penthouse of 1000 square metres at Rio's Copacabana is available for 15 million Brazilian reals ($8 million).

Yet as Mr Linz said: ''You can't really compare it to Rio - Rio is so grungy.'' After all, Pacific Bondi Beach will be at the world's very best beach.